Toys in Japan is a huge business, and there is an astonishing range with many things you would never see outside Japan. The average toy shop itself is a wondrous place that is usually 4 to 7 stories high, jam packed with all sorts of marvellous fun for all ages.
Japan has so many cute little characters, and a Japanese toy shop has more than anywhere, there thousands of Hello Kitty products, Pokemon and his friends, dolls, penguins and dogs; and no toy shop would be complete without a Disney section.
Japan still loves the old favourites like Godzilla, Astro Boy and action toys like Transformers. These toys never go out of fashion, either does more western characters like Snoopy or the Sesame Street Gang.
Then there’s the unusual Domo-kun which is a square little brown angry monster who hatched from an egg and passes gas when he becomes nervous. He might have some unpleasant habits, but he sure is cute, and that’s about all a product needs to be to sell.
Toy shops usually have floors dedicated to car, plane and train model and usually have a games floor with electronic games and the more traditional board games. The stores have hundreds of small novelty toys which are usually only a few hundred yen and have large sections with vending machines where you can test your luck at getting a cute little novelty in a plastic bubble.
Some of the toys you come across are quite weird, there is a Hello Kitty doctors kit complete with fake morphine injections, Pacifiers which have little characters that move when the baby sucks, soft toy burgers with animal characters popping out of them and plenty of robots, anime and Manga gear.
Anime, Manga, model trains and cars are popular with the Japanese geeks referred to as Otaku, because of this the electronics districts of Akihabara in Tokyo or Den Den town in Osaka have many large hobby stores where thousands of model cars and trains can be purchased.
